Tuesday, September 23, 2008

My Love Affair With Solids

Hedgehog Jen may be having an affair with knitting, but I'm having one with solid fabrics. I'll get back to patterned fabrics one of these days, but not yet. Usually it's Lily mashing down the strips and crumbs on my sewing table, but Howler and Habibi occasionally help out:

I just ordered more solids and near solids.

Cherrywood Fabric, I do love you. They're selling Cherry Rolls now, a great way to get a variety of fabrics. Not that I went that way, I bought quarter yards and even some halves. woohoo. They came in the mail yesterday and oh my....

Also, I can recommend a great place to buy Kona Solid fabric. My order hasn't come in yet, but I've ordered from Fabric Shack before - they're great. They let you order small amounts of yardage and only charge you for the exact cost of shipping. Fabric Shack has the best price for Kona and Moda solids too. Only $3.99 a yard. And since they let you order quarter or eighth yards, you can really get a variety of them.

Check out my previous post. You get more of a glowing effect when you use colors that are almost the same, but not quite. I used five different fabrics for the letters in the HOPE quilts and it does make a difference.

In addition to Kona solids I also ordered some fabric from the new line by Marcus Brothers called Sahara Cloth. It looks like it's going to be a hand-dyed looking suede fabric but at a better price than for real hand-dyes. I'll let you know how those look when I get them. Anyone seen them already?

Oh and for you reproduction fabric fans out there, have you seen the Windham Colonies Cheddar and Poison Green collection? I even love them. Didn't order them, but I love them. Gotta put some brakes on my fabric buying habits somewhere.

I was thinking it would be fun to have a class next year where we use Gwen Marston's Ideas and Inspirations as OUR inspiration and work with solids or near solids (there are lots of things that fall into that category, such as hand-dyes (not the wildly multi-colored ones), hand-dyed batiks, moda marbles...). I'm definitely wanting to do that, so put the book and fabric on your wishlists if you're interested in joining me.

Speaking of Gwen and solids, I figure someone who reads this blog must have just come back from the most recent session of the Beaver Island Retreat. How did it go? Do you have photos to share?

Quilt Granny Sharon went to the previous week and posted her marvelous photos here. Doesn't everyone look like they're having fun?

The quilt Kristin is working on looks like it could have been made at Gwen's retreat - all liberated and solidy, but I know she came up with that all on her own. Ryan's quilt is just incredible and I love it. Plus you can see a pic of cutie Scrabble puppy and two other projects.

The AAQI gratefully always accepts the little quilts year round and gratefully. All the profits go to fund Alzheimer's research. [ooh, good thing I just caught a typo. That said "fun Alzheimer's research" - eek, I bet that's not much fun at all.]

Complete change of topic. Anyone with U.S. mail interested in trying Netflix for the first time ever? I can offer you a month-long trial period instead of the usual two weeks, plus I get one free rental woohoo. I love my Netflix and I continue to get them even though the mail here is soooo slow. (Yes, we do get U.S. mail through my husband's job.) When I was in the states living near major cities I was getting the discs the day after they shipped and it was marvelous. Send me an email if you're interested.

The first thing you should try renting? Pushing Daisies. I just finished the first season and I love love love love it. So much that I'm going to do a separate post on it one of these days.

I'm so happy I'm not in solid land by myself! *LOL* Most times, people just shake their heads at me and say they can't use them because they are boring...but they are INTENSE, not boring! And the stitching..woah...nothing shows the stitching like good ole solids! Weeehaaa! The Cherrywood's sound yummy!

I sure love solids, too. so versitle and clean. I didn't realize that the Fabric Shack sold the Konas so cheap. I'm about to place an order with them, so I'll have to add some of them to my cart. thanks for the tip!

Oh, and thanks for the challenge to make a quilt for the Alzheimer's Initiative. I've been to Ami's site a few times, *love* using the fast triangle technique for hanging small quilts, keep meaning to make at least one quilt for the project but haven't done one yet. Maybe this will do the trick ;- )

Your use of solids is just wonderful and I wish I had more in my stash with the color range that you use! Ooh. Isn't Howler magnificent! and Habibi is handsome too.

As for pictures, most of my friends know that I take pictures for the blog but sometimes I ask my farmer friends if I can show their pictures without trying to explain what a blog is. Too complicated. I specifically ask parents if I can put their child's picture on the blog. I wonder about strangers... Some of the old Japanese are so photogenic and the odds of them coming across their own picture on my blog is miniscule...

Between you, Bonnie, Gwen, and all the quilters you inspire, we'll be seeing loads of solid quilts in the not too distant future. Did you see the quilt I made from hand dyed solids? The border motifs are all Gwen Marston designs. http://persnicketyquilts.blogspot.com/2008/09/shoot-me.html

About Me

I live in Florida with my seven cats and my husband. I've been a quilter since 1987 and consider my style liberated and non-traditional traditional (think Gwen Marston, Gee's Bend, and string quilts) and I watch way too much tv while sewing and hand-quilting.